Federalism and the politics of extortion

[MrVan]

FOLLOWING the  elite squabbles that enveloped national politics in Nigeria prior to,during and after the 2011 elections, politicians who are sufficiently grounded in the dangers of such dysfunctional alignment of public  interests with private elite interests,and knowing that under such conditions, there is the need to strengthen institutionalstructures for national  political balance in Nigeria, sought for a national platform for broader political consensus  that will prevent elite cannibalism in the country via a national conference.

But as Chief Obafemi Awolowo rightly observed, depth is the privilege of those who have suffered. Thus, it is without surprise that some elites sustained over a lengthyperiod by the rewards of quasi vassalage through the outcome of colonial distortions of the Niger area for the broad goals of mercantile interest, failed to see the national dangers, but could only see the superficial losses to their local imperial interests.

Such short-sighted elites, like Sanusi Lamido, and recently Babangida Aliyu, only see Nigeria from the fickle boundaries of the easy oil wealth that is available for sharing through a strong central government. In their bounded judgement for pecuniary rewards, there is no room for sustainable development, which will guarantee a win-win for the Nigerians of today and the Nigerians of the future.

Nigeria for them is a carcass which must be plundered, first from its most succulent entrails, and if necessary to its bare bones, hence while the insightful politicians are calling for a national conference to ensure sustainable rejuvenation of Nigeria, their eye is on the possibility of a shrinkable pie. While the wise are calling for federalism, they are strengthening the ideology of the feudal imperialist.

The fuedo-imperial disposition  of Sanusi and Aliyu is not a new phenomenon. To be certain,  one must admit in evidence, the characterization of the mercantile imperialist.

For instance, in wondering how the British state came to be committed,extensively in a global pursuit of  unbridled wealth, a writer noted that the sole reason was because "the business interests of the nation as a whole are subordinated to those of certain sectional interests that usurp control of the national resources anduse them for their private gain".

In a similar characterization, before the Opium wars, Lin Tse-Hsu (1785-1850),  the Chinese Commissioner in Canton in the eighteenth century described the mercantile imperialist as "persons who only care to profit themselves, and disregard their harm to others", thus he contended that such persons "are not tolerated by the laws of heaven and are unanimously hated by human beings".

Witness the curious analogy of Lin's concerns with the mobilisation of Northern sentiments by these chief officials of government, at a time when people are being killed by religious and xenophobic zealots in Northern Nigeria.

To further construct the mindset which impels Sanusi and Aliyu, Joseph Schumpeter described such yearning as been "an irrational, purely instinctive inclination to  conquest, a war being waged without sufficient reason, but only for the fact that the physical dispositions and social structure acquired in the past, once existent and consolidated, maintain themselves and continue to work after they have lost their meaning and their function,  and are furthered by the groups ruling the relationships of interests  which are allied by the influences of all those who individually stand to gain, either economically or socially, by martial policy".

To see how the mercantile feudo-imperialist struggle for rents from the Nigerian state at the expense of the welfare of Nigerian citizens by Northern elites locked in an economic context with Southern elites, causes the destabilizations currently bedevilling the country,  we must turn to the concepts of 'stationary' and 'roving'bandits by Mancur Olson, who posited that in non-democratic quasi-dictatorial political contexts, the sole determinants of political stability lay in  the  disposition of the leaders who may be caste as bandits.

To the Olsonian theory, a"stationary bandit" is an authoritarian ruler with a firm grip on power  who values economic growth as a means to sustain and expand his tax base, and hence invests in growth-promoting institutions, whereas a 'roving bandit'  is an authoritarian whose hold on power is transient and insecure and who therefore resorts only to 'migratory plunder'.

Following this characterization we can see that Northern elites, having been sustained by roving bandits on the Nigerian state, could not stomach the ascendancy of Abiola, and had to foist Chief Obasanjo on the state. Unfortunately, the plot did not have the desired outcome, and has been further complicated by the unforeseen ascendancy of Goodluck Jonathan from the very heartland of plunder. What is the result? Mindless killings, reckless and unconscionable economic theorizing regarding the causes of Northern poverty.

In a worsening scenario, other Nigerian elites who are confident in their administrative proficiency to add value to the resources in their power bases are calling for a national discussion because they are avid to stave off the collective economic suicide which the Northern elites have fomented in their home base through insecurity, the most damaging disincentive for attracting investments and potential prosperity.

Such calls are anathema to the sponsors of roving bandits. Butwhy would such calls elicit phobia and anxiety for Sanusi, Aliyu and their accomplices?

Sanusi , Aliyu and their cohorts are afraid and anxious of a national conference because to make economic and political demands on the collective, you must come to the table with something economically and by corollary politically significant. This is why the recent calls for acceptance of the national conference on the basis of increased demand for allocations by these Northern elites are nothing short of a ludicrous illusion.

Curiously, Aliyu graphically described what his state is allocated from the federal coffers without a word of what his state contributes to this pool.There is only one word to describe a perniciously destitute state which proposes to collect more from a pool of resources to which it contributes only an insatiable appetite-extortion....; that has been the motivation of feudalists and imperialists....this motivation poses a great danger to the future survival of theNigerian state and it can only be remedied by a more contextually relevant federalism.

Mr. ANTHONY MUDIAGA, a medical practitioneer,, wrote from Abuja.

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